Master Gardeners

Master Gardeners

Bill Dixon, of the WSU Master Gardeners program in Tri Cities, leads a group of volunteers in building two raised garden beds for the local Senior Life Resources center, run by Grant Baynes.

Full Transcript

Most communities don’t realize that there is an alarming number of seniors who, wonder where their next meal’s coming from. Or they’re okay this week and they wonder what’s gonna happen next week. About two thirds of our clients are home bound, and unable to cook for themselves so without us there is no food coming into the house.

We help organizations like Meals on Wheels or churches or schools to build food gardens. And this garden is being done also in conjunction with a Boy Scout troop. Who are providing the physical labor to get the work done.

This is phase one of a two part project here and we’re building herb gardens. And these herb gardens will be used in the kitchen. And so we’ll be able to introduce fresh herbs into the menu. It’ll improve the taste, it’ll save us some cost, and it’s an opportunity to kind of share that connection between the food as it’s grown, and then out to the people.

After the design, then we actually go out and purchase the materials, that can be used to build that garden. And we work in conjunction with the prospective gardeners to build their garden so that when it’s done they actually feel that they own the garden.

When it’s complete then, we provide them with seeds, and transplants, and tools so that they can basically start gardening. After the building and after the planting we stay with the garden. I think Tri-Cities is special because people care about people, and they’re willing to work and help in any way they can. We get lots of volunteers that come out to help build these gardens. We got fantastic donations from all sorts of organizations, corporations. We get grants, people wanna give us money to help do this so people can grow their food.

We all get up in the morning to come to work to help people stay in their homes. That’s our mission. And anything we do to further that mission feels good to us.

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